The low-floor treadmill or running machines are training installations used for performing physical training or walking or running exercising of patients in rehabilitation and of elderly people. In such low-floor treadmills, it is requested to lower a running surface in order to make the patient and elderly people in rehabilitation facilitate getting on and off the treadmill.
An example of known low-floor treadmill or running machine is disclosed in Patent Document 1 which is a previous invention of the present applicant.
In this running machine disclosed in Patent Document 1, a robust guide plate having a reduced friction is used to reduce a heavy load applied to the rear end of an endless belt located at an opposite side from a driving unit. However, the fixed guide plate has such a problem that friction increase comparing to a roller guide so that the guide plate exerts a bad influence on the durability of the moving belt and that a driving motor is overloaded.
Patent Document 2 proposes to use guide rollers arranged at an end of the endless belt in a low-floor treadmill. In this mechanism, however, it is necessary to use big bearings to support an axis of the guide roller, so that a larger space is required, resulting in such troubles that user trip on the treadmill and that the space is limited. Still more, it is difficult to design a smart treadmill.